The project to build a tourist RR line from Bishop to the Laws Railroad Museum is dead, at least using TEA grant funding. At the conclusion of the EIR studies it was determined that there was over a $1 million in mitigation costs, ROW construction costs would be in the $100-$150/foot range, Los Angeles Dept of Water & Power filed a letter opposing crossing the Owens River and Williams Creek, and only the cost of grading between the Owens River and Williams Creek was eligible for TEA grant funding. This was an Inyo County project and the Museum's input was limited to only the track on its grounds. Inyo County dropped the project and further consideration of a tourist RR.

An interesting thing about TEA Grant funding, the recipient does not receive any money up front. You spend your money, submit the paid receipts, and wait, and wait, and wait for re-reimbursement.

Max Cox
Bishop, CA

ISTEA sounds like a billionaire's game to me.

Every successful railroad museum I know of -- was built with the sweat equity of volunteers, bootstrapping with early passenger fares, hustling for every dollar, and doing absolutely everything dirt, dirt cheap. The words "professional services" just don't exist in that type of organization.

I don't know any successful railroad museum that was built on cubic money. All the ones that were, are - BIG SURPRISE - are in critical financial crisis because they ousted the volunteers built an internal "little empire" that is addicted to money. I don't call that "successful". When the museum can't afford both its mission purpose and the little empire too, the empire murders the mission as an act of self (empire) preservation. This is the nature of power.

Even as the organization spins toward the hard deck, paid staff will insist that ONLY THEY are competent to run the organization (when the opposite is plainly true), and they will literally crash the organization rather than relinquish control. In fact, the conduct of paid staff is, in all meaningful ways, identical to the behavior of the Flight 93 terrorists.

SFTM may be an exception to Robert's comments above. It got one of the first museum ISTEA grants in 1994, and we are still reaping that investment today. It also took sweat equity, membership dues and support, early fares and doing everything else dirt cheap. But we wouldn't have an operating car or an operating museum w/o the ISTEA grant.

The Como-Harriet streetcar in Minneapolis was completely relaid using ISTEA funds, what, ten years ago?

National Capital Trolley Museum received ISTEA funding for two successful projects: restoration of JTCo 352, and construction of our new campus.


Major capital projects involving ITEA and other big bucks at National Capital, Orange Empire, Western Railway and Pennsylvania Trolley Museum have successfully expanded mission and conservation of collections at these sites.

Wesley

Correct. TEA-21 (successor to ISTEA) grant application process started in 1999 or 2000, Grant approved in 2003 and work was done in 2005.

But there's more about our use of federal funds. In the 1990s, two carbarn expansion projects at our Como-Harriet Streetcar Line were done using ISTEA funds. In the mid-1990s, our entire Excelsior Streetcar Line, which includes a nice storage and maintenance shop building was built with ISTEA funds.

At WRM, the government grant used to help build the Loring Jensen Memorial Car House was not a federal ISTEA grant. It was a grant by the State of California using proceeds from a cultural heritage bond issue.

On the topic of grants, ISTEA, etc. I believe that the British have a system worth replicating: The National Lottery. They have a lottery just for supporting and preserving their historical and cultural assets. Protecting their history for the future.

Just my 2 cents.

Ted.